Thursday 1st October

The trees on Saville Road are shedding large numbers of conkers so that it looks like a huge contest has taken place. The road is peppered with car-crushed conkers. Likewise the trees are loosing leaves, and the chestnuts are the first to do so. At Sea Walls I saw a single Redshank on the mud just opposite, very still, with the eponymous legs bright in the sunshine, it did settle its wings now and then so that the white patches flashed. Lots of ducks and gulls lined the mud and swam at the river edges; the tide was receding. At the Peregrine Watch a Peregrine was perched at the base of the banana tree, it was almost invisible among the sun lite parts of the tree.